Post Reply - Greenland

NATO actually currently has five more military sites in total than Russia, but the Russian military's bases are far larger. The Simons Foundation Canada has documented in a fresh study that Russia has 32 "continuously attended military sites" in the Arctic region as of 2024.

Notably the outposts located Franz Josef Land, Kotelny Island, and Wrangel Island are able to house up to 150 ground troops each.

One of NATO's founding members, Norway, maintains 15 "continuously attended military sites". And per The Simons Foundation report, other NATO members have as follows:

• United States: 10 Arctic sites
• Canada: 8 Arctic sites
• Denmark: 3 Arctic sites, which are in Greenland
• Iceland: 1 Arctic site

Still, Russia's military has warned that "the Arctic is a region for potential future conflict" amid the global build-up there, according to Russia’s Commander of the Northern Fleet, Aleksandr Moiseyev.

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As for China-Russian cooperation in the far north, the fresh WSJ report observes in the following:

That support has been prominent in the Arctic, where Chinese companies are significant investors and equipment suppliers in Russian energy projects including the Yamal LNG and Arctic 2 LNG projects. 

Russia, in return, has been shipping fuel to China using its so-called shadow fleet, by which sanctioned vessels make illicit deliveries of Russian oil to markets in Asia. Last year saw a record volume for transit cargo through the Northern Sea Route from northwestern Russia to the Bering Strait, according to Rosatom, the Russian agency that oversees the waterway. Almost all of that cargo went from Russia to China, and more than half was crude oil. The total volume remains a fraction of crude-oil traffic through the Suez Canal: While the northern route’s shorter distance can cut transit times by two weeks, sea ice remains a treacherous obstacle despite shrinking ice cover.